بابا ركب تاكسي امبارح.

A rough pronunciation is:

bāba rikib tāksi embāreḥ

A few notes:

• بابا = bāba
• ركب is often pronounced something like rikib in Egyptian speech
• تاكسي = tāksi
• امبارح = embāreḥ

The final ح in امبارح is a stronger, throatier h sound than English h.

It is Egyptian Arabic.

The clearest clue is امبارح, which is the everyday Egyptian way to say yesterday. In Modern Standard Arabic, you would usually say أمس instead.

بابا means dad or papa.

It is very common in everyday speech and does not have to sound childish. Adults can say بابا naturally when talking about their father, just like English speakers say dad.

In colloquial Arabic, family words like بابا and ماما often appear without a separate word for my, especially when the speaker is obviously talking about their own family.

So بابا often naturally means:

• dad
• my dad

If you wanted to specify someone else’s dad, you could use forms like باباه for his dad.

All of those are close.

Literally, ركب has the idea of riding or getting on/in something. With transportation, English often translates it more naturally as took.

So in this sentence, ركب تاكسي is best understood as:

• took a taxi
• got in a taxi
• rode in a taxi

Because Arabic does not use an indefinite article like English a/an.

So:

• تاكسي = a taxi or just taxi
• التاكسي = the taxi

A bare noun like تاكسي is enough to mean a taxi.

Because that is a very natural place for a time expression in Egyptian Arabic.

This sentence follows a common pattern:

subject + verb + object + time

So:

• بابا = subject
• ركب = verb
• تاكسي = object
• امبارح = time expression

You can move امبارح earlier for emphasis, but the original order is completely normal.

Because the verb itself already tells you the subject is he.

In Arabic, past-tense verbs include information about:

• person
• gender
• number

So ركب by itself already means he rode / he got in / he took.

Since the sentence already has the noun بابا, there is no need to add a separate word for he.

The verb would change to the feminine form.

You would say:

ماما ركبت تاكسي امبارح.

The difference is:

• ركب = he rode / took
• ركبت = she rode / took

So the -ت marks feminine singular in the past tense.

It is a loanword, borrowed into Arabic, but it is completely normal and commonly used.

Egyptian Arabic uses many borrowed everyday words, and تاكسي is one of them. So even though it comes from a foreign source, it behaves like an ordinary vocabulary word in speech.

Yes, absolutely.

أخد تاكسي is also very common in Egyptian Arabic and often translates naturally as took a taxi.

The difference is small:

• ركب تاكسي emphasizes riding / getting into the taxi
• أخد تاكسي emphasizes taking a taxi as a means of transport

In many everyday situations, both are natural.

In Egyptian Arabic, a very common way to negate a past verb is with ما...ش around the verb.

So:

بابا ما ركبش تاكسي امبارح.

This means Dad didn’t take a taxi yesterday.

If the subject were feminine, you would say:

ماما ما ركبتش تاكسي امبارح.